Blessed Isle

by Alex Beecroft

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  http://www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Blessed Isle

  Copyright © 2012 by Alex Beecroft

  Cover Art by L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  Editor: Sarah Frantz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-937551-83-4

  First edition

  November, 2009

  Second edition

  December, 2012

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  For Captain Harry Thompson, the command of the prison transport ship HMS Banshee is his opportunity to prove his worth, working-class origins be damned. But his criminal attraction to his upper-crust First Lieutenant, Garnet Littleton, threatens to overturn all he’s ever worked for.

  Lust quickly proves to be the least of his problems, however. The deadly combination of typhus, rioting convicts, and a monstrous storm destroys his prospects . . . and shipwrecks him and Garnet on their own private island. After months of solitary paradise, the journey back to civilization—surviving mutineers, exposure, and desertion—is the ultimate test of their feelings for each other.

  These two very different men each record their story for an unfathomable future in which the tale of their love—a love punishable by death in their own time—can finally be told. Today, dear reader, it is at last safe for you to hear it all.

  To Andrew, without whom I would not be able to do this.

  About Blessed Isle

  Harry Thompson, his journal

  Year of Our Lord 1802

  Harry Thompson, his journal

  Grace of God etc.

  Harry Thompson, his journal

  Garnet, etc.

  Harry Thompson, his journal

  Garnet, etc.

  Harry Thompson, his journal

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  I light a candle and look on the man sprawled facedown among tangled bedclothes. The night air is sticky, airless, almost as hot as the day. I’m sat here at the desk, sleepless from the heat, as I will be until dawn brings a breeze from the sea, with the scent of tar and ships and a faint cool. I’ll sleep then. For now, I write. And look at him.

  Gauze curtains hang around the bed, white, ghostly, veiling him. He’s kicked off everything but the tail end of a sheet and has hidden his face in the crook of his arm. His back is pale as milk and, in the candlelight, a sheen of sweat gilds his muscles. He is a tall man, lithe and slender, and his black hair gleams like jet, curling into the nape of his neck, where a final lock kicks up like a drake’s tail. I lean down to part the drapes and rest a hand gently on his bare shoulder. He shifts towards the touch without waking.

  How did I come here? What strange movement of the heavens or gamble of Providence marked me out to be so blessed?

  I reach for the open window and edge the sash a quarter inch further, letting in lush, choking air and a multitude of Saint Sebastian’s insect life. The pages of my journal lie limp and damp, and the ink sinks thirstily into them. A week ago, I examined a ship trading ice out of Greenland, crawled about the hold and parted the woven mats of straw to touch the cargo’s glassy sides and feel its burning chill with my fingertips. It was the first time I have been cold in almost a decade.

  There might be some relief from this pressing humidity in the tiny boathouse beneath our dwelling. The thought of taking candle and journal and sneaking down there, to write in the cool, is appealing. But it would mean leaving him alone, and I begrudge every moment spent out of his presence. We have been forced to give up so much for this, our state of near-married bliss. Best appreciate it now, lest tomorrow the hangman snatch it away.

  The oak-apple-gall-and-vinegar scent of the ink pricks my nose. I sand the page and smooth it. Why do I want to leave this record? Why not leave our story untold? It is dangerous to speak, let alone to commit the words to paper. My need to confess may be the death of us both. But it leaves a bad taste in my mouth that this love should go unrecorded, that posterity should judge men like myself—like him—by the poor fools driven out to grope strangers in alleys, all fumbling fingers and anonymous grunting. Those of us uncaught must perforce be silent. But one day, perhaps, when the world has grown kinder, this journal will be read by less jaundiced eyes. To them I will be able to say there was fidelity here, and love, and long-suffering sacrifice, and joy. To them I will be able to speak the truth.

  I trim my pen and dip it. From the waterfront, the docks and warehouses all about us, comes the clap of rope against mast, and laughter: the riot of sailors trying to forget. In the town beyond, the notes of a cavaquinho fall like silver raindrops into the night. But, floating over all, from the hills of the interior comes a rumbling throb of drums as the slaves and the natives too remember their stories, keep their truths alive.

  I should introduce myself. I am Captain Harry Thompson of His Majesty’s Royal Navy. I began my life as a Norfolk wherryman’s son. Pressed aboard the Sovereign under Captain Garvey at the age of fourteen, I took to the Navy as a bird, falling from its nest, takes to flight. It was my element and my delight. I filled my hours with work and study. Alone in my hammock at night, I imagined myself a great admiral, pacing the deck of a First Rate, my own flotilla following in a strictly measured line behind me. By diligent study of those better born than myself, I polished my manners and my mode of speech so that I could pass as a gentleman. In the year 1784 I was made lieutenant. The most junior lieutenant of the Barfleur under Admiral Lord Samuel Hood.

  A man like myself, with no family connexions, may serve his whole life as a lieutenant, but I was determined that should not be my fate. If I required either a miracle or an act of heroism to secure a captain’s rank, I would produce one. So when, some years later, a French cannonball shattered the railing of the Barfleur, which burst into thrumming, foot-long splinters of sharpened oak that sprayed the quarterdeck like spears, I was ready. I leaped in front of the Admiral and received through my shoulder the dart that would otherwise have pierced his throat.

  I remember the blur of the sky, hazy, hot, and deep, deep blue, all the masts bowing in towards me as if falling atop my face. I felt a
crushing sensation as though they had indeed pinned me beneath them, and my mouth filled with blood. I could not have cried out even if I had tried, though I am pleased to say I did not try. I fell silently into oblivion. And then I awoke in my hammock with a vast pain, and an admiral in my debt.

  Which may be taken as sufficient explanation for why, at thirty-four years of age, with a new wig atop my freshly shaved head and a servant going on before me to carry my baggage, I took possession of my first, and last, command.

  HMS Banshee, a sloop of war, swung about her anchor rope in Plymouth that day under gentle English May-day sunshine, and looked as though she had sailed straight out of my boyish dreams. Her paint shone bright azure and gold, and her company, drawn up for my inspection, stood neat and biddable, the officers glittering, the men like a country garden in bright check shirts and ribbons.

  I found, later the same day, that she was elderly, had been much knocked about in the Bay of Biscay, and was a leaky, wet ship. Always three feet of water in the well, no matter how we pumped. Always mildew on the food and in our clothes, and her finely dressed men wheezed and coughed as they worked.

  My servant unpacked my things and did his best to make the cabin homelike, wiping the black bloom of mould from all the surfaces, installing my few belongings in this sumptuous, almost indecent, expanse of private space.

  That week I was too full of work to see either officers or men as more than brief, bipedal shadows cast into the cave of my preoccupation. I had a convoy to organize. News had reached London that Captain Arthur Philip had successfully brought his fleet to Rio de Janeiro and, after reprovisioning there, had departed for Australia, his small payload of convicts largely intact. The birth of a new colony was underway, and I was directed to follow with a second fleet, comprising the convict transport vessels Drake, Quicksilver, and Cornwall, the supply ship Ardent, and the Banshee as escort and protector. All this I was to organise myself, and to achieve before the month was out.

  In my zeal, I drove myself to achieve it all in little more than a week. I wonder now, looking back, whether—had I taken longer, been more scrupulous—I might have seen the seeds of the great calamity to come. A bruise here, a livid cheek there, among the men and women huddled behind iron bars in the holds of the transport ships. Doctors assure me the malady could not have lain low so long, but I cannot help wondering . . .

  Yet hindsight makes Cassandras of us all, encouraging us to cry out, “You should have listened,” when it is far too late. Perhaps the doctors are right, and my fault came later. It is my fault just the same.

  The weighed anchor rose with a pop and a spout of bubbles from Plymouth’s seabed. The day was fair, crisp and golden as white wine, and the breeze fresh. A Thursday, it was washing day aboard the Banshee, and we departed to our fate with the ensign flying, white sails bravely spread, and our rigging fluttering with shirts, small clothes, and stockings hung out to dry.

  Now, I thought, taking a turn at the wheel to see how she handled—she wallowed like a swimming cow—I have the time to get to know my ship, my men.

  The spray tangled like silver lace about the yellow-haired, screaming woman of Banshee’s figurehead. The wind strengthened and the ropes of her rigging creaked with accustomed strain. By afternoon we were out of sight of land. Our little community of ships sailed alone on the deep blue waves of the Atlantic, under a sunset as juicy orange-pink as a peach.

  A great burden fell away from me then, and I sighed as the wind nudged my back and whipped the ends of my ribbon against my cheek, the land and its scurry behind me, a long, long voyage before. Now there is time to do more than merely work. Time to live.

  The washing came down from the rigging. The watches changed, last dog watch into first watch. Soft and silver over the sigh of waves, the ship’s bell sounded out once. In echo came the sweet ring of the bells on Drake and Ardent, and a moment later the distant ting of Quicksilver and Cornwall further behind. Night fell with the lazy downward drift and sheen of a falling magpie feather.

  After eating my solitary dinner, I set my wig on its stand, took off my uniform coat, and substituted an old grey short-jacket, disreputable and comfortable. I intended my officers to know at a glance that this was an informal visit. The officer on watch, Lieutenant Bailey, I believe, attempted to hide his lit pipe behind his back as he snatched off his hat with his other hand. I gave him a nod and walked past, pretending not to have noticed.

  I have been down many a companionway—one hand for the ship and one for myself, leaning back to place my weight more firmly on the treads. I was unaware this was the last time I would do so in possession of my own soul. Not even when I paused outside the closed door of the wardroom at the sound of a voice singing, a voice as smooth and rich as a flagon of whipped chocolate, did I imagine that my life as I had known it was about to come to an end.

  A wardroom servant, coming out burdened with dishes, held open the door for me, supposing me too grand to work the latch myself. I ducked beneath the lintel and froze there as if the air had turned to amber. I breathed in scented resin and eternity.

  Scattered pewter plates reflected the light of lanterns swinging gently from the beams overhead. The hull curved in about the room like cradling palms. Down the long sweep of board, glasses glittered with pinpricks of silver, the wine within them burning red. He stood behind his empty seat at the head of the table, singing.

  Braced, his long fingers curled over the back of the chair, the fall of his frock coat devastatingly elegant, he stood like the Archangel Gabriel before Mary. And his beauty was such that had he looked at me and said, like an angel, “Do not be afraid,” I would have had to thank him for the needful reassurance.

  Words cannot do him justice. What word is “black” to describe hair as glossy as obsidian, as soft and thick as fur? He wore it in a loose mass of curls, collar length, informal, very modern. His top lip the shape of a Mongolian recurve bow, only a shade or two pinker than his strikingly pale skin. A stubborn jaw outlined in shadow and a long straight nose. Black lashes and strong black brows. A masculine face, and yet exquisite; clear and glorious as a sword thrust through the heart. I gasped at the shock and ecstasy of it, and without faltering in his song—to this day I don’t remember what it was he was singing; “You Gentlemen of England,” perhaps—he turned to look at me.

  His eyes were dark brown, like his voice—like chocolate. Their gaze at first conveyed frankness, thoughtfulness, though with an element of wariness admixed. I saw them widen as he comprehended my interest. His song faltered. He licked his lips. At the sight, a wave of heat and blood rose stinging and tingling from the soles of my feet to my head. My heart beat twice in silence, the world falling away from our tangled glances, the two of us alone in the pupil of God’s eye.

  And then normality returned with a chorus of clinks as the slouching officers set down their spoons and cups, leapt to attention, mobbed me with welcomes and glasses of wine.

  I couldn’t remember his name! We must have been introduced a week ago. One of those obedient faces beneath cocked hats must have been his. But, distracted by duty, I had been deaf and blind. Impossible though it seemed now, I simply had not noticed.

  “Lieutenant Garnet Littleton, sir,” he said, and gave me a wry, sensitive smile that made me choke on my claret. Dear God, so much for time! The voyage had only just begun and already I was doomed.

  You cannot guess how I am laughing in my heart. Well, why should you? I am dead and dust, and all you see is the change of writing from Harry’s crabbed scrawl to my elegant hand. There will be fewer ink splotches in this portion, I promise you.

  Every night it is the same. We tryst with great mutual pleasure, and I, sated, fall asleep, only to be awoken in the grey of dawn by a flutter of curtains, a cold wind, and the sound of his snoring. Yet again, he’s slumped over the desk, tallow from the candle overflowing the tin saucer in which it stands and greasing his head and elbow. His fingers are in the ink. I have become quite the expert at
hauling him from chair to bed and tucking him in without waking him.

  Then I sit, and read what he has been saying, and chuckle to myself. He’s so earnest. So pedantic. So convoluted in his meaning and expression. I love him for it, but still I laugh.

  Tonight I see he has begun a record of our love. For shame! How could he think such a thing worthwhile without asking for my contribution? He will miss every subtlety and tell but half the tale without me.

  Look here, for example, where he has said, “I don’t remember what it was he was singing.” Is that not shocking? It reminds me of my father, trying to recount his own courtship over the dinner table. “Your mother was the most radiant creature I have ever seen,” he would say, “in a blue satin dress that matched her eyes . . .”

  “Darling, it was teal,” my mother would reply. “And silk. I can’t believe you can’t even remember my dress. Thank God one of us was paying attention!”

  And they would bicker for the rest of the afternoon, both of them with the same smug smile, taking great pleasure from their children’s annoyance.

  I feel a little like that now. For the song was “Give Me But a Friend and a Glass, Boys,” and it was flung out like a net to see what I could catch. In case it is not sung where you are, dear reader, here are the words:

  Give me but a friend and a glass, boys,

  I’ll show you what ’tis to be gay;

  I’ll not care a fig for a lass, boys,

  Nor love my brisk youth away.

  Give me but an honest fellow

  That’s pleasantest when he is mellow

  We’ll live twenty-four hours a day.

  You see? I was angling for a fish to bite, so I shall not rebuke him too much for being unaware of the lure, when he took it down whole and was hooked regardless. Evidently he was so dazzled by my numerous and wondrous qualities that my message utterly passed him by. I find I can forgive him for that.

  Do you think I’m a fool? Yet it isn’t folly which makes my words so light, and causes nonsense to spill out of my mouth like the notes of an aria. It’s just that I’m happy. I didn’t believe it possible to be this fortunate in life, being what I am. But I was wrong. Happiness goes to my head like wine. I daresay I am insufferable with it. If that’s the case, I ask you to bear with me. To suit my sad tale, I will become much more miserable presently.